We first thought of visiting Cinque Terre after seeing how much mention it got on most blogs in the travel space. While the Amalfi coast, and the southern part of Italy was an obvious option, more than half of the blogs I read to understand Italian tourism pointed me towards this dreamy sequence of five towns nestled among the mountains.
Tuscany is known for its wine and food. While Florence was a little bit of a disappointment for most of us, (majorly because we couldn't appreciate the art strewn upon the city), Cinque Terre was almost a breath of fresh air in the Tuscan mountains.
We woke up early on November 04 in Livorno in our plush AirBnb. It was one of those days during the trip when we wished we had just scheduled the entire 14 days around a single country, rather than the marathon that we were doing. Not that we regret seeing so much now, but we were extremely tired that day. While we went about packing whatever we hadn't packed up the previous night, I spoke to the local taxi agency and guided them to where we stayed. My broken Italian, a lack of sense of direction, and an almost comical landmark delayed the taxi by quite a bit of time. I later realized that the landmark I was giving the taxi driver, a pharmacy, was on every street in Livorno. It was almost like asking an Uber driver in Madras to come to the street with the Pilaiyar on it.
We managed to catch the train from Livorno to Pisa, and later made our way to the already-booked train from Pisa to La Spezia. La Spezia is the gateway to the five towns - or Cinque Terre, in Italian. While La Spezia, in itself, doesn't have any attractions, most tourists prefer crashing the night in La Spezia, and make their way to the Terre early in the morning. But we weren't most tourists - we preferred to crash miles away just because the AirBnB we got looked really pretty.
It was only after arriving in La Spezia with all of our luggage, were we told that the trekking path between the five towns were closed because of the incessant rainfall in the Tuscan region, and rest of Italy. It was a bit of a disappointment considering we had plans to stow our luggage at the La Spezia stations, and then trek between the five towns. When I say 'We', I had that plan, while my parents and sister secretly hated the fact that I was going to make them walk around. But the closing of the trekking path threw a spanner into it, and we decided we had to just see the towns by train. We chose two towns, and these were again based on what I read. Vernazza and Riomaggiore were the towns that were going to have the pleasure of having us as tourists, whatever that is.
We made our way first to Vernazza. I was blown away by its beauty even before I got out from the train. Considering the towns are aligned almost in a line, Vernazza was the second town from the north, while Riomaggiore was the southern most town. Since we were going from the South, we passed Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, and landed in Vernazza. The train station in Vernazza is actually in a tunnel in the mountains. You have to walk out of the tunnel, and walk down from the mountains to actually reach the town.
Vernazza was nestled perfectly between the mountains and the sea. This was the first time I actually walked down from a mountain, and had a 360 degree visual of the Ligurian sea. Nobody actually took a dunk, or even stepped into the sea because there was a slight drizzle, and the tides were pretty choppy. The view was breathtaking, and almost as if taken from a postcard. We did the usual photo ops, and had our packed breakfast. The 'packed breakfast' was a result of the miscalculation in the quantity for dinner the previous night. We put it into boxes, and carried it with us. Typical Indian thing to do, I know.
After the photo ops, we walked a little up the mountain, got some pickled salad, and munched on the famous Italian 'aperitif' as we saw what we could of the extremely small town. Our next train to Riomaggiore was an open ticket, meaning we could get on it whenever we wanted. But the problem was our train from there to La Spezia was only at 6 PM. We had banked on the Cinque Terre entertaining us the whole day, and hadn't expected it to be shut down. It was 10 AM in the morning when we reached the Vernazza train station. The locals had just woken up and were surprised to see us leaving already.
As the rain started pouring down, we got into the Riomaggiore at 10 30 AM. The train from Vernazza to Riomaggiore was relatively more crowded. We got down in Riomaggiore, and took shelter from the rain for a while before making it into the town. Riomaggiore was almost the opposite of how Vernazza was set up. The train station here was by the sea, while the town was nestled in the mountains. This meant a steep climb up in the pouring rain. We were neither adventurous, nor crunched for time, so saw the rain out before we made our way up. My sister and I took a lead as we went up the really steep Riomaggiore streets, and soon lost our parents who were lagging quite behind. We told them to take rest and make it slowly, as we hurried up.
Riomaggiore was supposed to be the most beautiful during sunset. While the town in itself was bigger than Vernazza by atleast two times, there was precious little to see other than the castle and the church, both of which were nestled on top of the mountains. We made it to the top, and took a lazy walk from there to the castle. On the way, we stopped to ask for directions a few times, and were even rebuked for calling it a castle while it was called castello in the local language. The difference? We don't even pronounce the T in English, while the T is all they pronounce in Italian. Who thought I'd get language lessons in Italy?
The castle was a 17th century monument, or that is what the inscriptions said. We had another breathtaking view of the Ligurian Sea, and didn't waste it by not taking pictures. On our way back, we saw our parents still making their way up, stopping casually in every eatery asking if there was something vegetarian, and getting grossly disappointed. We waited on the streets for them, as they made it to the castle and back by 2 PM. As our stomachs grumbled, we had our millionth margherita pizza for lunch. The pizza was atrociously cheap (10 EUR for a giant pizza), and we got a coke to go with it. The coke was an allowance for my dad for making it up the mountain and back. He was diabetic otherwise, and we strictly regulated his sugar intake.
It was only 3 PM and we were already done with our lunch. We had to kill a further three hours, and therefore made our way to the viewing points from where the sunset could be seen. The sun set that day a little late, around 5 PM, and till then my sister took a quick nap, my mother complained about her knees aching, and my dad asked around if there was more vegetarian food. The sunset was a sight to behold. As the sun disappeared behind the Ligurian sea, Riomaggiore for 5 minutes was washed in a colour of orange. This, mixed with the existing pastel coloured houses made the town even prettier.
It was time to catch out train to La Spezia and collect our luggage. From La Spezia, we caught a train to Pisa, the largest town in this part of the Tuscan region. We would take a connection from Pisa to Rome, the capital city. We were due to arrive in Rome at 11 PM, but arrived only at 11 30 PM. The Frecciabianca that we took, the fastest train in Italy, was not fast enough to reach us to Rome on time. A pity, considering we paid almost half our airfare from Mumbai to Venice for the Pisa to Rome train. It was a luxurious train, make no mistake, and no, they did not serve food. Shadabti > Frecciabianca, any day.
While we sat next to a couple with a poodle (yes, dogs are allowed on train, flights and in restaurants in Europe), we took another quick nap, and woke up only when the train eased into Roma Termini, Rome's largest and main station. My mom had booked the accommodation in Rome (the only booking she made in the entire trip), and it was a wonderful hotel room right next to the station. The entire complex had a hotel in every floor, and we were booked into a different floor because the original hotel was overbooked. We didn't complain as the room was comfortable enough, with hot water, clean, and a three pin plug I ended up bringing with me to Chennai, thinking it belonged to my Dad.
Cinque Terre is definitely beautiful, and worth a visit especially in the non-rainy season. It gives the Indians in us a glimpse of unpolluted, unpopulated, and unadulterated beauty. All for a price.
Tuscany is known for its wine and food. While Florence was a little bit of a disappointment for most of us, (majorly because we couldn't appreciate the art strewn upon the city), Cinque Terre was almost a breath of fresh air in the Tuscan mountains.
We woke up early on November 04 in Livorno in our plush AirBnb. It was one of those days during the trip when we wished we had just scheduled the entire 14 days around a single country, rather than the marathon that we were doing. Not that we regret seeing so much now, but we were extremely tired that day. While we went about packing whatever we hadn't packed up the previous night, I spoke to the local taxi agency and guided them to where we stayed. My broken Italian, a lack of sense of direction, and an almost comical landmark delayed the taxi by quite a bit of time. I later realized that the landmark I was giving the taxi driver, a pharmacy, was on every street in Livorno. It was almost like asking an Uber driver in Madras to come to the street with the Pilaiyar on it.
We managed to catch the train from Livorno to Pisa, and later made our way to the already-booked train from Pisa to La Spezia. La Spezia is the gateway to the five towns - or Cinque Terre, in Italian. While La Spezia, in itself, doesn't have any attractions, most tourists prefer crashing the night in La Spezia, and make their way to the Terre early in the morning. But we weren't most tourists - we preferred to crash miles away just because the AirBnB we got looked really pretty.
It was only after arriving in La Spezia with all of our luggage, were we told that the trekking path between the five towns were closed because of the incessant rainfall in the Tuscan region, and rest of Italy. It was a bit of a disappointment considering we had plans to stow our luggage at the La Spezia stations, and then trek between the five towns. When I say 'We', I had that plan, while my parents and sister secretly hated the fact that I was going to make them walk around. But the closing of the trekking path threw a spanner into it, and we decided we had to just see the towns by train. We chose two towns, and these were again based on what I read. Vernazza and Riomaggiore were the towns that were going to have the pleasure of having us as tourists, whatever that is.
We made our way first to Vernazza. I was blown away by its beauty even before I got out from the train. Considering the towns are aligned almost in a line, Vernazza was the second town from the north, while Riomaggiore was the southern most town. Since we were going from the South, we passed Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, and landed in Vernazza. The train station in Vernazza is actually in a tunnel in the mountains. You have to walk out of the tunnel, and walk down from the mountains to actually reach the town.
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| The tunnel - station of Vernazza |
Vernazza was nestled perfectly between the mountains and the sea. This was the first time I actually walked down from a mountain, and had a 360 degree visual of the Ligurian sea. Nobody actually took a dunk, or even stepped into the sea because there was a slight drizzle, and the tides were pretty choppy. The view was breathtaking, and almost as if taken from a postcard. We did the usual photo ops, and had our packed breakfast. The 'packed breakfast' was a result of the miscalculation in the quantity for dinner the previous night. We put it into boxes, and carried it with us. Typical Indian thing to do, I know.
 |
| This was what Vernazza was all about - the mountains, and the sea. |
After the photo ops, we walked a little up the mountain, got some pickled salad, and munched on the famous Italian 'aperitif' as we saw what we could of the extremely small town. Our next train to Riomaggiore was an open ticket, meaning we could get on it whenever we wanted. But the problem was our train from there to La Spezia was only at 6 PM. We had banked on the Cinque Terre entertaining us the whole day, and hadn't expected it to be shut down. It was 10 AM in the morning when we reached the Vernazza train station. The locals had just woken up and were surprised to see us leaving already.
As the rain started pouring down, we got into the Riomaggiore at 10 30 AM. The train from Vernazza to Riomaggiore was relatively more crowded. We got down in Riomaggiore, and took shelter from the rain for a while before making it into the town. Riomaggiore was almost the opposite of how Vernazza was set up. The train station here was by the sea, while the town was nestled in the mountains. This meant a steep climb up in the pouring rain. We were neither adventurous, nor crunched for time, so saw the rain out before we made our way up. My sister and I took a lead as we went up the really steep Riomaggiore streets, and soon lost our parents who were lagging quite behind. We told them to take rest and make it slowly, as we hurried up.
Riomaggiore was supposed to be the most beautiful during sunset. While the town in itself was bigger than Vernazza by atleast two times, there was precious little to see other than the castle and the church, both of which were nestled on top of the mountains. We made it to the top, and took a lazy walk from there to the castle. On the way, we stopped to ask for directions a few times, and were even rebuked for calling it a castle while it was called castello in the local language. The difference? We don't even pronounce the T in English, while the T is all they pronounce in Italian. Who thought I'd get language lessons in Italy?
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| On top of the world, literally. In Riomaggiore, in the castello. |
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| The margherita pizza that saved our vegetarian lives. |
It was only 3 PM and we were already done with our lunch. We had to kill a further three hours, and therefore made our way to the viewing points from where the sunset could be seen. The sun set that day a little late, around 5 PM, and till then my sister took a quick nap, my mother complained about her knees aching, and my dad asked around if there was more vegetarian food. The sunset was a sight to behold. As the sun disappeared behind the Ligurian sea, Riomaggiore for 5 minutes was washed in a colour of orange. This, mixed with the existing pastel coloured houses made the town even prettier.
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| Not quite at sunset, but the pastel coloured buildings make a good background, nonetheless. |
While we sat next to a couple with a poodle (yes, dogs are allowed on train, flights and in restaurants in Europe), we took another quick nap, and woke up only when the train eased into Roma Termini, Rome's largest and main station. My mom had booked the accommodation in Rome (the only booking she made in the entire trip), and it was a wonderful hotel room right next to the station. The entire complex had a hotel in every floor, and we were booked into a different floor because the original hotel was overbooked. We didn't complain as the room was comfortable enough, with hot water, clean, and a three pin plug I ended up bringing with me to Chennai, thinking it belonged to my Dad.
Cinque Terre is definitely beautiful, and worth a visit especially in the non-rainy season. It gives the Indians in us a glimpse of unpolluted, unpopulated, and unadulterated beauty. All for a price.
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